


Intruder

by GlowwormiK



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adventures, Galra Empire, Happy Ending, M/M, Mer!Galra, No Smut, Prorok is a frontier guard, mermaid au, no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-16 03:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16077461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlowwormiK/pseuds/GlowwormiK
Summary: Frontier guard Prorok finds an intruder in his area, but his pursuit is unsuccessful. Later, he finds a message that pulls him into a conversation the will change his life. Mer!Galra AU: no space, but Galra empire is present. A collaboration with astfut (see her art inside corresponding chapters).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this drawing](http://astfut.tumblr.com/image/177014213436) by [@astfut](http://astfut.tumblr.com). Prorok's and Thace's looks also inspired by her works, see illustrations to corresponding chapters. 
> 
> Another special thanks to astfut for a scientific discussion about chemical qualities of sulfur in water and their impact on ocean creatures, as well as other valuable suggestions.

„Intruder“. This is the thought that wakes Prorok and forces him to open his gills as much as he can to make the first deep inhale of the day. In these forsaken lands, even the water itself is wrong: it does not let merfolk breathe properly and makes them lethargic and weak. “Intruder”, he thinks. And: “Danger”. That last thought strikes through Prorok’s entire body like a sting of an electric ray. He grabs the trident without looking, flips his strong tail and storms out of the cave. It is still dark outside, the sun hasn’t yet managed to send its rays into the depth and the massive algae forest looks like a solid black wall, a material incarnation of the word “Menace”. It is also cold, a sharp contrast to the cave with its warm underground current breaking free, but Prorok is so agitated that he hardly notices it.

 

“Reveal!” Prorok clicks, reverting to simplified language for the sake of speed and volume. “Reveal! Empire! Where? Reveal!”

 

 

 

He yells so loudly that he goes temporarily deaf from his own echo waves resonating from the stones and his cheeks start hurting from tension. He turns his head frantically and strains his gills to filter as much water through them as he can to smell better, but nothing helps. The water is clean (as clean as it can be here) and still, and there is no movement anywhere. Was he wrong? Maybe there was nobody? He does not give up though – the Emperor did not send him to this cold, lonely and dangerous place to float around lazily. He swims left and right around the cliff, steers up to have better overview until his temples start aching from lessened pressure and stirs the algae with his trident, ready to be attacked; nothing comes out. Finally, he gives up, already worn out from straining to swim fast in these poisonous waters, makes one last inhale so deep that it hurts his gills and returns to the cave to get the rest of his sleep. And yet he cannot. The current that warms him reeks of sulfur – as usual here, but this time, Prorok cannot ignore it as he is used to. The faint trace of smell doesn’t leave his mind, so he keeps trying to recognize it, turning it in his head to and fro like a closed box that needs to be opened, tasting it again and again. It was no creature from the depth. Prorok knows what those smell like: a cold stench that makes everyone’s internals freeze with horror, an almost mineral one, one that cannot belong to a living being. It was not an animal, either – those do not know culture and do not convey their natural odor, so the merfolk can sense them from afar. This is something different. It is soft and gentle, almost playful, something Prorok would gladly inhale again and again… It is a scent of a young merman.

 

 

This cannot be, though. Who would willingly come that far to the northern borders? Which loyal subject of the Empire would hide when an officer demands them to show themselves? Besides, it is not exactly a merman smell: it has this musk tone to it, a promise of untamed sexual energy, nothing like the frontier guard ever smelled before… A merman appears out of nowhere near Prorok and hugs him from behind, his face hidden in the shadow, but his arms strong and his lips soft on the behind of Prorok’s head, and his tail fins long and flowy, and his scent – oh his sweet, enticing scent that fills everyone around him with lust… Prorok jerks and opens his eyes – he fell asleep without realizing it, and is now floating uncomfortably in the warm current with a raging boner. Cursing under his breath, he leaves the cave once again – the sun is already high, so the frontier guard is thankful that there is no one to witness him crawling out, overslept and messy like a horny tadpole. He chews tar to clean his teeth and eats some meat from the ratios; then scratches the omnipresent yellowish film off his megaphone (incredible how much of it manages to grow just overnight!).

 

 

Morvok would have hidden in the cave for the rest of his watch. Ladnok would have hesitated and consulted her neighbours until it was too late. Ranveig would have closed his eyes on the incident. Prorok is not like them. He swims as high as he can once again, turns south and puts the megaphone to his mouth. A deep inhale. Another.

 

“Watch! Prorok! Intruder! Unknown! Merman! Night! Escape! Request! Pursuit! End!”

 

He knows he has a loud voice, and simplified language is very easy to understand even at low volume, but his outpost is one of the most far away ones, so he still strains to click every word at maximum volume and by the end of his report, he is out of breath. He turns his ears slightly forward and backward to not miss the answer while he tries to regain his breath. Answer clicks arrive fast, an unknown mermaid from the coordination center of his area is as clear as she could be.

 

“Approve. Prorok. Pursuit.”

And so, he takes his supplies for the day, the net and the trident, and starts off into the algae forest.


	2. Chapter 2

It is always dark there no matter how bright the sun is, so Prorok relies more on his ears and gills, rather then his eyes. He makes sure to stay as quiet as possible, moving his tail softly to avoid splashing. Sometimes he touches jellyfish that inhabit the forest, but he doesn’t let himself to be distracted by hunt, even such banal one. He carefully bends the algae away and stares into the moving darkness, turns his ears back and forth and sucks water in to smell, but he finds nothing. When his muscles stop burning and start aching, he allows himself a short break. He chews meat without paying attention to its taste, then rounds up his meal with an obligatory portion of brown algae that helps make up for the lack of oxygen. What if it was a false alarm, a mirage produced by loneliness and lack of sex? That would definitely explain the appealing odour… He searches all day, despite the excruciating cold that feels even stronger in the forest, but he finds nothing and returns to the cave disappointed. Sulfur-induced nightmares torture him all night, but when he wakes up again in the grey light of an early morning, the scent is back.

 

He flies out of the cave like a stone shot from a sling, silently, saving his breath for swimming. Left - nothing. Right - he turns his head in time to catch a dark shadow disappearing in the algae. He barges into the the forest after his prey without thinking about secrecy anymore, blood pumping with physical exertion and battle excitement. He can’t see his adversary, but the scent is all over his tongue, as appealing as before. He senses a movement right in front of him and dashes forward, already bringing his hand back to strike…  A tail hits him right in the face, knocks him back and blinds him, but only for a second. Realizing that he might let his prey escape, Prorok throws his trident like a spear where the blow came from. The intruder shrieks: a cry of an animal, not a merman; metallic smell of warm blood shows Prorok that he hadn’t missed. He sends himself forward to finish the intruder creature off. Instead, he grabs merman’s shoulders in the darkness, and a merman’s tail hits him once and twice, albeit too weak to do any proper damage. Prorok has no time to be surprised: acrid smell of ink fills his gills and burns his eyes, so he suffocates helplessly, letting the other one break free and swim away. It takes Prorok almost fifteen minutes to wash his gills through and rub his eyes free from the burning, the intruder is already far away. What’s worse, the ink masks the blood in water, so he can’t keep chasing by smell. There is nothing to do - Prorok finds his trident in the darkness and heads back to the cave.

 

What a shame, he keeps scolding himself, letting the prey go that easily. Letting yourself be blinded by one slap, and not even a particularly skilled one! You, the strongest fighter in his Majesty’s frontier guard, who can knock an opponent out with one single flip of his tail! You should have taken the net with you, not just the trident, then you would have had him in your grasp by now. If only it wasn't a surprise like that… But what is this intruder? He is built like a merman, he smells like a merman and he fights like a merman, but he shrieks instead of clicking like an animal that doesn’t know civilized speech. And his ink - so much ink! Merfolk ink glands have reduced over generations of civilized life, now they are only able to spit out a couple of spoons of it at most - how could the intruder produce such a thick cloud alone? Prorok remembers sharp shoulder blades under his hands and the narrow shadow - the other one is borderline emaciated. Who is he? How can he swim so quickly and effortlessly when the water is so poor of oxygen? And what does he want around Prorok’s outpost?

 

The answer to the last question becomes clear when Prorok sees the cave - the secured box with his supplies is open and half-emptied: most of the food is gone, together with replacement nets, a couple of knives and other equipment. He robbed me, the frontier guard realizes in outrage. The bastard snuck into the cave, took what he wanted and almost escaped while Prorok was sleeping like an overfed catfish! Now it is clear why the intruder came here - the smell of proper food must have lured him, and of course he took knives - metal gets corroded so quickly in these waters, anything sharp must be in high demand. This means one more thing, though: the intruder is sentient. Stealing meat is one thing, but no animal would have figured how to open the box and take those knives. Maybe he is just mute? Maybe his tongue is deformed, so he can’t click properly?  Still, he had no reason to steal - in the Empire, no one is left to starve to death!

 

Now, it has become personal. Next morning, Prorok reports an unsuccessful search from yesterday, but does not say anything about the fight in the night, just requests more food that is promised to arrive in a couple of days. He will catch the bastard on his own, no matter how well he swims. Instead of taking his afternoon nap after having patrolled all morning, Prorok curls himself in a ball in the warm stream, bites on his tail fin and starts planning, trying to find a lead in the endless net of contradictions that come to his mind.

 

The intruder is a merman - but he doesn’t talk and it is unclear if he understands civilized speech. He is in an amazing physical condition to swim like that - despite being hungry for what seems like a long time. He is a mediocre fighter - despite being exceptionally nimble and quiet to be able to open the box without waking Prorok up. He has no direct intention to kill - otherwise he would have done that already. And now he is wounded. Prorok tries to think of ways to catch him, but he can’t put himself into the intruder’s shoes, understand what he might want. Finally, after the evening patrol, he simply digs a net into the sand and puts the remaining meat and marinated algae on top of it, then secures the ropes so that the trap closes when someone tries to lift the bait. He doesn’t sleep at first, straining his eyes to look into the darkness outside, but then the exhaustion takes the better of him and he passes out.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Prorok rushes out of the cave to see if the trap worked only to find it intact, with a stone lying in it instead of food. Whoever the intruder is, he was cautious - and sharp-eyed - enough to notice the trap in the darkness, understand how it worked and trick it by putting another weight in before taking the old one out. Besides, that leaves Prorok without his last food supplies: no breakfast and no dinner in sight. That sneaky bastard! Enraged Prorok circles around the cliff and hits his tail on the ground, knocking stones over and stirring sludge from the ground into the water until it gets almost impossible to breathe with mud. After he has calmed himself a little, he lets the water clear and starts packing the net - obviously, a finer trick is needed.

 

 

 

He is about to lift the huge boulder that has been holding the whole construction in place, when he sees something that makes his hands go limp: a rune. Hastily scratched with a knife on the top of the rock, it was definitely not there yesterday. Prorok drops the boulder and stares an it in shock. A rune. A _rune_. Not current phonetic writing, but an ancient rune, a piece of half-forgotten knowledge from before the Empire was built! Prorok is educated enough to be able to read it, but he hasn’t seen any runes for such a long time that he has to think hard before he recognizes it. “Thankfulness”. The humour behind this message is difficult to oversee, and Prorok inhales and exhales to prevent himself from exploding. This… this stealthy, speechless, rune-writing sardine dares mock him! He dares thank after robbing the trap! He is so confident of himself that he took time to leave this insult here! Prorok roars like a wild beast as he charges around, too angry to even produce consistent clicks. He storms into the cave, grabs the trident and is about to charge off into the forest to find and kill the other, but he stops himself.

 

First, leaving his outpost, going after this unknown foreigner is state treason. Now that it is clear that the intruder is a civilized being, it is Prorok’s duty to report the whole story to the capital instead of acting on his own. The Emperor would send a proper squad here that would apprehend the intruder and punish him, and Prorok might even get a medal for his attention. Yet he hesitates, there is something else bothering him. It is not easy to memorize thousands of runes to write the correct one so hastily - the intruder is obviously an exceptionally bright and educated individual. And who even studies runes nowadays, who would invest time in old writing? Why would a book lover like this act against the Empire? Refusing to fulfill orders from an officer, stealing from a frontier guard, lurking around behind the border with unclear purposes... Punishment for crimes against the state is death. Prorok remembers bony shoulders under his hands, the sweet scent and that pained shriek, and has to swallow a painful knot in his throat.  What if the other one has a reason to behave like that? What if he needs help instead of punishment? If Prorok reports, they will clean the intruder alive: in the last years, the Emperor has become even more strict about cased of alleged treason. They will kill the guest and Prorok will never even know who he met under such weird circumstances.

 

“Quiet! Not! Accident!” he clicks during his morning report, then repeats his request for food.

 

“Glutton. Hunt.” they answer. Prorok can only grit his teeth: his pride can wait if someone’s life is at stake. He takes the last remaining net and starts off to catch jellyfish in the forest. Despite the seasoning, jellyfish are bland and disgustingly squishy - one would need to marinate them for at least a week to make them taste somewhat like normal food. He didn’t have any hesitation when he stole my things, Prorok thinks gloomily while he scratches his gum with his finger to unglue a piece stuck to it. Why exactly am I saving him?


	4. Chapter 4

He sleeps during the day and in the evening, he arms himself with everything he still has in possession and hides in the algae, careful to rub himself with deodorant to stay untraceable. Time to turn the tables and catch the spy - if he comes back, of course. Against Prorok's fear, he does appear, and quite soon. Prorok lies in his stomach on the ground and watches him from below: a thin, dark form on the light background. Prorok notices unusually long tail  and spiked fins, but otherwise it is impossible to tell any details. The other one has also taken care to deodorate himself, so now Prorok doesn’t smell him at all. He is cautious, he swims slowly and makes endless circles before sinking deeper. Prorok now also understands where he wounded his adversary - at the very end of his tail, near the fin, so the other merman now can’t bend his tail without pain and will have trouble maneuvering.

 

 

 

Finally, the other one sinks deep enough and nears Prorok’s attack range. The Commander flexes his tail - now or never! He storms out of his hiding spot and invests his momentum into a terrible blow he wants to deliver. But his muscle is rubbery with everlasting cold and his eyes aren’t as sharp in the semi-darkness - the other one manages to dodge despite the element of surprise. Prorok only notices thin, needle-like teeth and a sharp corner of the intruder's mouth with completely black lips as he flies past him in a clumsy attempt to slow down. The other one starts up with the speed of a scared swordfish, while Prorok has yet to turn to start chasing him. They sprint through the forest, algae hit Prorok in the face mercilessly, but he doesn’t feel the pain.

 

“Stop!” he manages to click, even at the cost of speed. “Empire! Mercy! Stop! Food!”

 

Despite his injury, the other merman swims too fast, and soon, Prorok feels that his whole effort is in vain - he is starting to fall back.

 

“Stop!” he clicks once more, but the other one either can’t hear or can’t understand. He disappears behind thick brown leaves, and Prorok slows down to regain his breath and wait out the burning in his muscle. “Return,” he clicks desperately, resentment and disappointment heavy in his chest . “Friend. Return. Empire. Mercy.” No answer comes.

 

This second defeat seriously affects his mood. That day, he only patrols as much as is absolutely necessary without breaking his vow and spends the rest of the time in the cave, curled and shielded against the outside cold. Never had he suffered such shameful defeats. He always relied on his strength, stamina and brain, but now they all failed him. He suddenly realizes what huge impact this stifling water has had on his health, how weak, slow and stupid he has become. And he sees no way to turn the tables without calling for reinforcement - his opponent seems to be better adapted and will always win. Hunger makes him shiver from cold even during the day, he caught all jellyfish around his cave and doesn’t dare to travel further to get more without leaving the cave unattended for too long, and algae that he chews don’t satiate him at all. That day, he organizes traps at the entrance to the cave to keep himself safe in his sleep, but still refuses to report what is happening to the capital.

 

The next morning, he finds more runes on the stone.

 

“Negation. Food.” it says. “Bad. Trap. Pain.”

 

The runes are never verbs, only words that describe objects, and they are polysemantic, so this can be read as “Too bad there is no food, I don’t like your traps, I am hurt”, or “I don’t need more food, I cannot move (am trapped) because of terrible pain”, or even “your traps are badly constructed and can cause injury (pain)”. Prorok scratches his head, trying to figure out the most compact representation of his thoughts.

 

“Food. Zero.” he writes. He wants to write “Empire. Friend”, but there is no rune for the Empire, because it hadn’t yet existed when those were invented. “Name. Other. Purpose. Other,” he writes instead: the runes use “this” and “other” instead of “me” and “you”. “Container. Healing. Wound.” Prorok leaves healing salve in a jar as a demonstration of his good will.

 

The other one takes the salve while Prorok is out patrolling, but leaves another jar and a couple of stolen ratios instead and writes more messages. “Jellyfish. Good. Food. Other. Fat.” Then there is a drawing: a merman, square face with thick furrowed eyebrows, a round body with a ridiculously small sardine tail, jellyfish tentacles hanging out of his mouth like a weird moustache. Despite being very schematic, the drawing lets Prorok recognize himself immediately. The Commander starts laughing uncontrollably: a sardine, really? Stinky sea cucumber, Prorok thinks, still unable to stop laughing: everyone knows you can’t lose weight on jellyfish. He first wants to write that he will catch the intruder and stick his tail in his mouth for this mockery, but then he pauses: he hadn’t felt so amused and intrigued for a long time. Maybe he shouldn’t be too hasty with reactions.

 

The other line of runes goes a little lower. “Container. Food. Algae. Good. Mixture.” Prorok opens the jar cautiously: it contains brown paste with a strong smell of something  fermented. He knows he shouldn’t eat - the ratio could have been poisoned and Quiznak knows what the paste even contains, but his stomach growls mercilessly and silences his concerns. The paste mixes with algae perfectly, gives a warm aftertaste to their freshness, and together with the ratio, they finally fill Prorok up and warm him. It is not until he has finished eating that he notices the third line of runes at the bottom.

 

“Sword. Loneliness. Brother.”

 

What? What does this even mean? A “lonely sword”? But what the brother has to do with anything? Finally, it dawns on Prorok: this is the other’s name! These runes shouldn’t be read for their meaning  (well, sort of, but not exactly), but for their sound. The only problem - the runes don’t have a singular pronunciation, only singular writing form and finger gesture. Prorok remembers his teacher saying that they were used when merfolk was still separated and speaking various languages. The “Loneliness” rune is the only certain one - it is an “A”  no matter where, but both others... The word can be read as “Daz”, or “Tas”, or even “Datz”. There is no way to tell, so Prorok chooses to call the other one “Tas” until further information. In Prorok's home dialect, it would be pronounced “Thace”.

 

“Other. Writing. This. Joy. Food. Thankfulness.” Prorok writes. “This. Negation. Fat. This. Victory." Full stomach puts him in a good mood, so he tries to draw Thace - a proper merman tail, but only a fish skeleton instead of the upper part of the body. The frontier guard makes sure to provide his creature with the biggest, sharpest teeth, but only draws a thin bunch of algae it's mouth. "Other" he writes and draws an arrow pointing to the picture. Let the intruder know that he is not the only one around who has humour! 

 

Prorok still needs to ask the stranger serious questions, though. "Other. Home," he writes. After some consideration, he adds: "Reason. Other. This place". He thinks that he might need to provide his adversary with some sort of information about himself in return to win his trust, so he adds “This. Home.” and draws an imperial trident at the end of his message. A little lower, he transcribes his name with runes: ”Sky. Loyalty. Passion. Loyalty. Passion. Family.” It remains to hope that Thace uses standard pronunciation (otherwise Prorok’s name would result in an incomprehensible pile of consonants) and is smart enough to understand questions about his origin and his goals here.

 

Next morning, new symbols appear, four whole lines of rune text: “This. Eye. Other. Much. Time," Thace writes. Prorok shivers at the thought that a potential enemy has been watching him from behind the algae without him knowing. Then he remembers how he used to trim the fur in his armpits and polish scales on his tail in front of the cave to get more light, thinking there was no one around, blushes heavily and goes on reading. "Other. Much. Beauty. Much. Color. Big. Fin. Much. Strength.” Obviously, the other one came over during more flattering pastimes... Prorok can't help but smile at Thace’s obviously empty flattery, but his light mood quickly vanishes when he reads on: “Numerous. Merfolk. North. Not.” Then goes a whole line of runes that give Prorok a hard time deciphering: “E-M-P-I-R-E”.

 

There are merfolk that _don’t_ belong to the Empire? Here, in Prorok's service area? How come he didn’t know about them? Thace says they don’t want to fight, but what is one of them doing on the imperial grounds, then? He still avoids telling his purpose… Prorok’s heart is heavy as he cleans the cave (scratching yellowish sulfur film off every stone and wooden object is a tedious everyday job here) and cuts algae that have grown outside of the forest and threaten to narrow his view on his patrol area. He accidently turns the stone over and discovers more writing.

 

“Other. Friend.” Thace writes. “Negation. Sword. Talk.”

 

Now it has become serious: if Prorok accepts, he would be negotiating with a possible enemy without informing his senior officers. If he declines, this will probably be his last interaction with Thace. Prorok is so agitated that he cannot take his afternoon nap, but by the evening, he writes the answer: “This. Other. Talk. Day.” Then he adds: “This. Negation. Sword.”

 

Let us see if he accepts the invitation, Prorok thinks before falling asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

The delivery man, lieutenant Haxus, brings him food next morning. Prorok watches him with animosity.

 

“What took you so long? You should have been here the day before yesterday - I am nearly dying of hunger for three days!” The stupid youngling just grins.

 

“Me. Not. Depth creature. Not. Teleportation. Not. Ink.” he clicks, unwilling to speak full sentences and strain himself without proper oxygen supply more than absolutely necessary. When he has already turned away, he adds “Glutton”. He knows that the wave will resonate from the cliff and Prorok will hear it nevertheless, but the Commander doesn’t listen. _Ink!_ Depth creatures have a lot of ink. It is their tactic to exude clouds and clouds of it over whole villages and tear their merfolk prey to pieces while they are helpless! How could Prorok forget this? How could he let himself be tricked by this sweet merman smell? He has been writing funny messages with an enemy agent all this time!

 

He heard rumours about depth creatures not just eating mermaids, but also mating with the most vicious and spoiled of them, willing to risk even their life for more thrill. He heard about babies that are sometimes born from this unnatural intercourse: they are said to look like merfolk except for their eyes. Their eyes are said to be black and void like those of their fathers, and their souls just as cold and cruel. Sometimes, they bear more marks of their true heritage - fins on the backs of their heads, membranes between their fingers, sharp fins instead of soft flowy ones, but sometimes they look completely harmless as babies. If allowed to live, they will grow up among their merfolk peers, but sooner or later, their dark side will take over and they will feast on those they called friends. This is how a merman can produce so much ink - this Thace must be such a halfling, a bait sent to distract Prorok from his duties, maybe even lure him away, tempt him to serve the enemy. Prorok suddenly remembers that he never saw his new protégé in daylight. Maybe Thace’s eyes are huge and void, like black depth from where he originates. Maybe he has poisonous claws. Maybe he is even a shapeshifter - these tales Prorok also heard!

 

Cold goosebumps run along Prorok’s spine: he used to laugh at those tales about merfolk being tempted to act up against their Emperor, and now he is one of them! By the evening, he takes all his weapons and hides again. Thace appears out of the algae as soon as it gets dark. He is much more confident now, heading straight for the stone they are writing on, Prorok’s knife in his hand. I will murder you, Prorok thinks. I will plunge my trident right into your heart. For my village, for every village your kind ate. For my own gullibility. Never again.

 

 

He charges forwards at the enemy who is bent over stone, trying to read what Prorok wrote him. Even not expecting an attack, Thace still manages to dodge, albeit barely. Prorok’s trident tears the skin on his stomach and colors the water red. Deep sea creatures have black blood, but Prorok forgets such trivia. He swings the trident again: Thace screeches something in his weird language, throwing his hands up in an instinctive protective gesture, but the veil of rage has already dropped down on the frontier guard’s consciousness, he is beyond communicating. The other one recognizes that and tries to flee, but Prorok grabs his back fins and drags him down, anger compensating for his clumsiness. They both land in the sludge on the ground and wiggle, Thace unsuccessfully trying to free himself while Prorok struggles to get to his throat. In their fight, they slowly roll towards the cleft in the rock wall of the cliff. Thace waves his tail to the left and Prorok instinctively charges there, ready to grab. He opens himself for an attack, and Thace picks him and throws him into the cleft. Not losing a second of time, the intruder hits Prorok with his tail once and twice, pushing him further between the two stone walls. Half-stunned, Prorok wiggles desperately and realizes that he is stuck, face down, his head lower than his tail, unable to move his arms. Completely helpless and at the nonexistent mercy of his adversary, he innerly prepares to die. Will it be fast, with the knife entering his body where the skull connects with the spine; or will the halfling want to play, and will plunge it between the shoulder blades to watch his prey bleed to death slowly while squirming?

 

Seconds flow one after another, but nothing happens. Prorok squirms so hard that his whole spine hurts, hits his tail around blindly in futile attempts to free himself and grits his teeth in hatred at his sadistic captor who obviously enjoys the view and wants to savor his prey’s fear for as long as possible. It just seems to him that he almost moved one arm, when a flat stone lands in front of his eyes. It is covered with runes, and the hand that delivers it is a normal merman hand, albeit too skinny: no membranes, no naked hairless skin, no poisonous claws. “Other. Hatred. Negation. Friend.” Prorok reads, frozen in half-movement. “Sword. Negation. Reason.” The other one breaks his trident (Prorok hears a quiet crack, but it makes him shiver as if from an explosion), splashes his tail so that Prorok feels the current of water on his body and swims away.

 

It takes the frontier guard almost half an hour to free himself, but finally, he gathers the fragments of his broken trident, gets back to the cave and curls himself in a ball again, holding the stone against his forehead. “Other. Bad. Negation. Friend.”: these runes seem to be burning his eyes from inside. Thace had Prorok helpless in his hands. He could have finished him with one blow - and no one would have started searching for until tomorrow in the best case - the quick intruder could have gotten so far away that the Empire would have never found him. He showed _mercy_ , mercy in the most basic sense: he could have taken a life, but he preferred not to. From someone who attacked him twice before. From someone who called him for a negotiation and hit from behind. Would Prorok have done the same in his place? The frontier guard knows the answer, and it makes him squirm and curl himself even tighter, trying to hide from shame and regret without any success.

 

A couple of times that night he swims out of the cave into the outside cold, ready to go into the forest to search for the one he so lowly attacked, but each time, he turns back. The forest stretches miles and miles to the north, there are no maps, no directions, no checkpoints - just the endless brown mass. He has no idea where Thace is gone to, no idea how to look for him - he would only starve to death without any success. And even if by some miracle he managed to find the rogue merman, what would he say? How would he explain his reasoning to the halfling? How can he claim that the Empire only protects its citizens if he was the one to attack, and not the allegedly cruel creature? And who would even believe him? And so, Prorok returns back again and again and curls down, trying to hide from the excruciating loneliness in the stinky warm stream.


	6. Chapter 6

Imperial forces arrive in the morning - it turns out that Lieutenant Haxus can be very fast when he wants to. He had noticed absence of equipment and Prorok's distressed state, and reported it. For the first time, Prorok is afraid to see his brothers in arms. At first it seems banal - they are sympathetic and offer him to change him early from his shift in this toxic area. Later, however, they discover the broken trident and the stone Prorok and Thace have been scribbling on. It is treason from now on: Prorok is apprehended, and delivered to the capital.

 

“Who did you write to?” they ask.

“I didn't,” Prorok answers as calmly as he can, trying not to look at all the torture devices on display in the dungeon. “These symbols kept appearing on the stone every morning. I had rune lessons in school, but I forgot almost everything. I recognized the “food” sign, but the rest is obscure.”

“Why are you in them? Why did they draw you with a jellyfish in your mouth?”

“I don't know. Maybe they saw me hunting and eating jellyfish when I lacked food.”

“Why did you lack food? Where did it go?”

“I ate it.”

“Twenty ratios in less than a week? Together with packings - we didn’t find those in any proximity?”

“I was hungry.”

 

His lies are obvious, but clinging on them is the only strategy he can think of now. He has to keep them trying to "crack" him, make him admit he stole food and sold it to someone, so they will have less time to pursue other questions that might lead them to Thace.  Punishment for theft is dire, but at least he will live and so will the stranger merman, given that he doesn’t venture into the imperial territories anymore.

 

“Why didn’t you report the appearance of symbols?”

“I didn’t understand where they were coming from, so I tried to solve the riddle on my own.”

“And what did you do, exactly?”

“Set traps. Unsuccessfully.”

“Are you an idiot, Prorok? Or do you think we are idiots to believe you?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. One doesn’t get smart after not breathing properly for two years.”

 

They declare his preliminary sentence: he is being dishonorably discharged from the military, has to pay a fine and is banned from executing any official position. Prorok knows he should be devastated - his good name is ruined forever, but all he can think about is whether the Empire searched for Thace and his people and if they managed to stay unharmed. The only thing that is left before the sentence becomes final is the Emperor’s approval, but it is just a formality: his Majesty’s justice system works smoothly enough for him to rarely interfere.

 

The Emperor is bored while they read the accusation, he would obviously much rather be somewhere else. He moves in his massive throne several times and drums his fingers on the armrest. The sea witch at his side has relaxed her octopus tentacles and lets them hang freely under the hem of her cloak, her eyes also absent. However, when the accuser arrives to the runes part, the Emperor suddenly straightens himself and the witch also tenses up under her hood. “Repeat!” Zarkon orders. The accuser repeats, although his throat obviously goes dry and his clicking becomes almost unrecognisable. Purple eyes narrow even more when his Majesty pushes himself off the throne and slides towards Prorok.

 

“Supporting illegal societies, aren’t we?” he clicks, his voice so powerful that the resulting waves move fur on Prorok's face. “What other members were you recruited by? Who were you writing with?”

 

“I don’t understand, Sire,” Prorok answers. “What society? What members? I was alone out there, stifling water made me sleepy, so I ate more than usual to keep myself awake. I am innocent!”

 

The huge hand grabs him by the throat. "Don't lie to me, frontier guard. You have three seconds to name your accomplices."

 

"I... have none..." Prorok struggles to click. "I was alone..."

 

"You do realize that whatever those northern renegades offered you as a reward is worthless now that you can lose your very life any second?"

 

"What... renegades? I didn't even know there were any sentient creatures there apart from me. Why aren't we informed that there is merfolk in the North, your Majesty? Who are they?"

 

"So you do admit you were collaborating with enemies of the state and lying to your Emperor? Haggar, read his mind.”

 

If someone asked Prorok what the witch did to him, he wouldn't be able to properly describe it. She was just behind the throne, and in the next second she already at his side, her tentacles squeezing his arms and tilting his head back. The suction cup at the end of the tentacle attaches itself to Prorok's forehead, there is short pain and the world goes black in front of his eyes. When he wakes up, everything is over. He is floating with his belly up like a dead fish, his head ringing, and the Emperor is back in his throne.

 

“So it wasn’t a society after all.” He sounds disgusted. “Just lust and weakness that lead to treason.” He already turns away when he orders: “Feed him to the Worm.”

 

Traitors and coup plotters are killed in the most painful way possible - they are given as prey to the Giant Worm to be slowly digested in the acid of its stomach. They say that the pain is so intense and takes so long that those who get swallowed turn crazy before they die and spend what seems like eternity in agony. The creature lives in the deep lake in the Midlands. Treacherous merfolk is being escorted there, chained to a cliff and left there for their doom, and now so is Prorok.

 

It would be a lie to say that he is not scared. No, he is terrified beyond imaginable. A quick death doesn't scare him - after all, he knew he would not live a long life when he joined the military and then the frontier guard, but this… The very thought sends waves of weakness into his tail and makes his hands shake. Time seems to crawl as they take him to the place of his execution, but at the same time, it flies away with every precious second that he can still look around himself, breathe and not squirm with unbearable pain. At some point, he even considers telling them that he has more important information on the secret society. He suppresses the cowardly urge - if this would be enough to save him is questionable, but he would also pull Thace with himself into the early grave. Or worse, he could be forced to act as a tool that helps seal his never-actually-friend's fate. No, Prorok would never allow that to happen, so he swallows his fear again and again and prays to all sea gods that the worm somehow kills him beforehand.

 

The execution cliff is a chunk of reddish stone, so it seems as if it sucked in the blood of all the merfolk that were killed here. Prorok has to swallow once again to avoid flipping out as they push him forward and fasten his hand- and tailcuffs in huge old metallic rings, fasteners drilled into the stone.  “Don’t leave me here alone,” Prorok almost yells. I can still buy myself another day or two of sweet life, he thinks, maybe earn a less painful death. They disappear hastily, unwilling to become the Worm's prey, while he bites his lips to prevent himself from talking. Tears of horror burn his eyes for the first time in his life and dissolve in the water. Prorok hears his heart beat heavily as he watches the menacingly green lake surface and waits for the predator to emerge, his face as cold as if he is back in the north. He doesn’t have to wait long - very soon, the still surface of highly salty water layer wrinkles and he feels a movement. The stone he is chained to shakes, a deep rumble of something huge being dragged on the ground. Prorok’s self-control breaks and he starts wiggling wildly in his chains, screaming, scratching scales off his tail and bruising his wrists. He whines helplessly as he watches the creature appear out of the depth and raise its ugly blind head, tentacles around its mouth trembling in anticipation of an easy meal. The creature approaches, shaking the ground and leaving a deep trail behind itself, the head is already above Prorok, stench coming out of its mouth unbearable… In his last moments of life, Prorok bitterly regrets not having seen and talked to Thace at least once - just to know who he was saving all this time.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

The Worm's whole body shudders, it throws its head back and screeches. Although Prorok is half-blinded by shock, he still can see something long and shining stuck in the creature’s massive body, just under the skull. The Worm shivers and hits his tail on the ground, Prorok doesn’t interest it anymore. A thin, dark merman shadow dashes out from behind the cliff, Prorok would recognize it anywhere - Thace! He swirls around the beast, pulls the spear out and stabs the Worm again and again in sensitive spots around its spine, nimble enough to evade dangerous mouth tentacles. He takes a second to turn towards Prorok and throws something at him - Prorok’s own knife is stuck in the rock, trembling, so he loses no time. He stretches trying to get to the knife - only reaching it barely, grabs it and clumsily hits on the stone beneath the ring that holds his right arm in place. A stroke - shackles bite into Prorok’s skin mercilessly, but adrenaline blocks out most of the pain - another one, another… Luckily, the rock is pretty soft - with granite, Prorok would have never had a chance. He breaks his right hand free, then it is a matter of less then a minute until he is freed completely, armed with a knife and ready to help Thace. It is too late: the Worm retreats, screeching with pain, suddenly cowardly at the face of his tiny yet deadly adversary. Prorok looks up: Thace is sinking towards him slowly, holding the spear in his stretched arm. For the first time, the ex-frontier guard can see his new acquaintance properly.

He is _beautiful_. Of course he is no halfling - what a ridiculous idea, how could Prorok even think that! He has merman eyes, big and yellow and just _captivating_ with those thick eyelashes, and of course he has no deformities like extra fins where they don’t belong - he is built like a model for an art class! He is definitely a different race from Prorok and everyone in the Empire - his tail is longer in proportion to his body and his fins are all pointed instead of flowy. Most imperial citizens are covered with colourful specks on their bodies that mask them in sunlight spots in the lighter southern forests and help them hunt. Thace is different - his skin and his tail are dark-blue, almost black, only gleaming silver when he turns around; this makes him look smoother and... more alien. He generally resembles an ebony statuette, with his seemingly fragile frame and his fuild, unfamiliar movements. But, most important of all, he is healthy and alive - uncaptured, unharmed, even the wound on his tail is healed. In contrast, Prorok feels just how ungroomed, weak and flabby he looks after days in prison cell and unsuccessfully tries to quickly straighten his sideburns.

The other one approaches Prorok and puts his hot, bony hand with black round nails on the frontier guard's shoulder. His face is worried and tired, but it has none of the anger Prorok expects from him. He says something - a series of whistles and moans that hold no meaning, and smiles shyly, baring his long needle-like teeth, but this unconventional smile only seems to make him more attractive. Prorok answers, also only to see confusion on his savior’s face. For a couple of seconds, they stare at each other, studying each other's faces (goodness is he dark-blue and handsome!). Thace pulls away and gestures “Pain”. Prorok tries to answer, but the fright he survived makes his hands shake and heavy shackles on his bruised wrists hurt mercilessly when he attempts to gesture “Thankfulness”, the only rune word that comes to his mind right now. He is not clear enough - Thace shakes his head reproachfully, inspects Prorok’s wrists and tail, then looks around wearily and starts off, gesturing Prorok to follow him. Right, Prorok thinks struggling to keep up the pace of his swift guide, we need to escape from here as soon as possible. He follows Thace away from the lake, around a village and into an unknown cave in a cliff. There, Prorok's saviour uses an unfamiliar-looking crooked wire to open the shackles, then bandages Prorok’s wounds, refusing to talk before he is done. When he is ready, he takes a writing board out, and Prorok gladly grabs it from him.

 

“Guilt.” he scribbles clumsily, because the surface of the board is much smoother than he is used to and thick bandages don’t let him flex his wrists properly. “This. Bad. Attack.”

 

Thace sighs and takes the stylus from Prorok: “Other. Negation. Bad. Other. Jellyfish.”

 

Jellyfish is a common symbol for stupidity, but humour is so unexpected that Prorok stares at the inscription for quite some time before he understands and starts laughing hysterically. He can’t stop, tears run down his face and tear-induced snot blocks his nose, but he is unable to do anything about it. One surge of pained giggling overflows him after another as he laughs out the tension of this terrible day. He starts shivering so violently that his teeth chatter and he has to grab Thace’s skinny forearm to keep himself from turning over on his back. He laughs so long and hard that his stomach starts aching, but Thace doesn’t hurry or interrupt him - just pats him on the shoulder, looks at him compassionately and waits.

 

"Reason. Attack,” he writes after Prorok manages to calm down a little. “This. Negation. Attack. Other. Writing. Talk.”

 

Of course he wants to know why I attacked him after I invited him… I need to describe deep sea creatures somehow, Prorok thinks.

 

“This. Idea. Other. Monster,” he writes, then tries to draw a deep sea creature, but he is too bad at it, and Thace shakes his head, unable to recognize the vicious animal.

 

“Reason. This. Monster,” he insists, his face now stern. Good question, Prorok thinks. Why did I think _you_  were a monster? 

 

“Tale.” he writes, although he knows how ridiculous it will sound. He tries to explain the concept of "halfling" with the small amount of runes he remembers without consulting a dictionary. “Monster. Merfolk. Child. Bad." Thace seems to understand, though, as he utters an enraged hiss and grabs the board from Prorok.

 

“Bad,” he writes, lines skewed with anger, then erases, then starts writing something else, erases again. Prorok tries to get the board back, but Thace doesn’t let him. “E-M-P-I-R-E,” he spells again, “Lie. Death. Knowledge. Negation. Child. Bad. Tale. Jellyfish.” Prorok’s head spins, he is in no condition to decipher whatever Thace wants to tell him or argue.

 

“Thankfulness,” he writes again. “This. Negation. Death.” He wants to ask Thace why he helped him, but he forgot the rune for the word "help". “Reason. Other. Death. Monster.” he writes instead. Thace smiles, and Prorok’s heart stops beating for a second from how beautiful this shy smirk makes him once again.

 

“Other. Beauty. Other. Culture." Prorok smiles broadly and is already about to take the board to write something nice back, when Thace continues: "Now. Other. Negation. E-M-P-I-R-E.”  

 

The truthfulness of Thace's words hits Prorok unexpectedly hard: he doesn't belong to the Empire anymore. From now on, he is a renegade, a homeless outcast. Everything he believed in, his service to the state that he was ready to protect at the cost of his very life, a hope of comfortable and well-off life, his plans and ambitions - this all crumbled like a bad sandcastle. The ex-frontier guard has to turn away to breath through the inner pain, but the other one understands nevertheless. He strokes Prorok's forearm gently with his fingers and pulls him towards himself, pointing to the board again. "E-M-P-I-R-E. Bad," is written there once again. "Other. Various (or was it "Different"? Prorok isn't sure). Future."

Thace keeps writing, trying to distract Prorok from his sad thoughts.

 

“This. Home. North. Tribe (otherwise translated as "Family"). Old times. Language.” Then he writes a rune that Prorok truggles to decipher as “Culture”, then go more complicated runes that Prorok doesn’t remember at all. He points his finger at them, shakes his head and makes Thace utter an angry hiss. He quickly writes “E-M-P-I-R-E. Merman. Much. Jellyfish”,  but Prorok is so disappointed at his own lack of education that he is not even offended. Thace whistles insecurely and tries to draw instead of writing. A building with round roof - a palace? A church? A sequence of small triangles - a merfolk procession? A school of fish? Some scrolls, more mermen - some with full beards and weird hats, one with a scar over his face, but all of them don’t ring a bell in Prorok’s memory.  What a shame, Prorok thinks, whoever Thace’s people are, they seem to retain ancient knowledge than we lost long ago. In the meantime, his new acquaintance continues. He crosses the building out, scratching the board so hard that the stylus might break any second. “Empire,” he writes. He draws a thick line across the neck of the merman with a scar, and repeats: “Empire”. He quickly draws a forest around a lonely cliff and crosses it out, too, with the same note. Prorok watches unknown ancient sages murdered, more and more allegedly important sites destroyed and his heart grows heavier with each drawing. Did we do this? Did… did his Majesty order this? Why?

 

“Reason,” he scribbles, taking the stylus from Thace. The other merman hisses. “Negation. Reason. Sword.”

 

Prorok sighs - it is impossible to understand anything with his lack of rune knowledge anyway, so he changes the topic. “Other. Home,” he writes, and Thace's face lightens visibly. “North. Numerous. Merfolk. Secret. Travel. Sword. Culture. Negation. Empire.” He thinks a little, then underlines: “Travel. Sword.”

 

Warrior nomads, Prorok thinks, makes sense. Northern waters don't receive enough sun rays to provide fertility to feed any significant number of merfolk in towns and villages. They have to migrate, probably after schools of small pale northern fish. This also explains how they managed to avoid being noticed by the obviously more powerful empire...

 

He would have asked more, but the two hear voices. Thace grows greyish-pale and Prorok also freezes with horror. Being discovered by the locals, them panicking and alerting guards would mean death for both of them. Thace acts first - he circles in front of the entrance, using his overly long tail to create a current that brings the water inside of the cave to prevent their smell from escaping; then he grabs Prorok and pushes him to the back wall. For several endless minutes, Prorok listens attentively: merfolk approach the cave but then, luckily, decide to turn away. When their voices finally disappear enough to become inaudible, he looks back at Thace. Now that the danger has been averted, he suddenly realizes that they float in a tight hug, with Thace’s nose barely an inch from his own. The other merman must understand the same, because he releases Prorok immediately, almost pushes him aside, and quickly turns away. He pretends to search something in his shoulder bag, but Prorok sees that he blushed heavily, not with just his face, but also his neck and chest; even the tips of his ears turned pitch-black, and he doesn’t dare to look Prorok in the eyes. “Guilt,” he gestures clumsily and swims away; Prorok can’t help a giggle. Behind all these fights and fears, behind his new friend’s dark-blue skin that masks his emotions, he completely failed to take into consideration that Thace must be much younger than him - and that his half-nomadic-half-warrior lifestyle must have left him little room for romance. If this is true, then what Thace wrote about him being colourful and what Prorok with his profound dating experience took for empty flattery might have been a painfully awkward confession of romantic interest.

 

He swims towards the embarrassed Thace, takes the board and the stylus.

 

“T-A-S,” he spells the other’s name. “Friend. Much. Beauty. Much. Bravery. Good. Sword. Rescue.”  He wants to write ”Grace” or “Skill”, but he doesn't know the runes for these words. Still, what he writes is enough - Thace blushes again, the second wave of colour even stronger than the first, quickly grabs the board and erases everything Prorok wrote.

  
“Lie,” he scribbles, his face flushed and angry, not looking up. “Negation. Talk.”

 

Prorok scratches his head - this is the first time his flirting yields such weird results. Usually, his peers would accept - and answer something nice, or decline with a reason. Maybe he got rusty during all these lonely years in the frontier service, when he would only see other merfolk a couple of weeks between his shifts? Maybe he is pushing too hard? “Guilt,” he scribbles, leaning over Thace's shoulder - better to apologize than risk offending. The other one shifts away hastily and rubs the board again and again, although flattering runes are long gone from the surface. Finally, he manages to overcome embarrassment and writes on.

 

“Travel. Night. Sleep. Day. Now.”

 

With a resolute expression, he pushes the board into his bag, puts it on the ground, swims towards the back of the cave and curls, preparing to sleep. Prorok follows him hesitantly - he is unsure if he can close his eyes after what happened today. Thace falls asleep almost immediately - or at least pretends to, but Prorok floats with his eyes open. Thousand questions clog his mind: how could a lonely weird-looking merman manage to travel through half of imperial territories unnoticed? How did he know about Prorok’s execution and where it would happen? What are his people doing so far in the north, when did they migrate there, who is their king, why do they look so different… Prorok watches Thace from under half-closed eyelids. The young merman has two side fins running through his tail and onto the sides of his body, just like Prorok, but they are hard and spiky. Prorok wonders if this is an adaptation for the cold climate or if Thace’s people look like that for some other reason. And do the ends of his fins glow or does it just seem like that?

 

His thoughts take a less practical turn: why did Thace react to his compliments the way he did? Is he abnormally shy or was Prorok being too straightforward by his standards? Or is Thace taken - than what is it with all the flattery and embarrassment? What do their courtships even look like, if they don't have constant houses to be comfortably intimate in? Maybe they change partners without hesitation, like they leave old places? Prorok, who enjoys a good hot stream above everything else and gets painfully attached to his lovers, shivers at this thought. 

 

The wish to touch Thace becomes almost unbearable, so the ex-frontier guard dares swim closer to his new friend and lightly press his tailfin to the blue spiky one - Thace doesn't react. Prorok then carefully and slowly wraps his tail around the other merman’s - if Thace wakes up and asks, he can say that it was a precaution to avoid being separated by possible currents, rather than a romantic gesture. But it plays out better than he hoped - Thace sighs in his sleep and curls his tail, too, pulling Prorok closer to himself. Now they are intertwined like seahorses, floating together in the way lovers or long-time friends usually do.  Prorok rests his hand on Thace's side, and it feels so wonderful - Thace is so smooth and hot and _just right_ for some reason… Touching him relaxes Prorok’s shoulders and ears, sends a smile on his face and makes his eyelids grow heavy. Now he feels like sleeping - and making sure that from this day on, he will always sleep only with Thace’s tail around his own.

 


End file.
